Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

WORKING IN FRANCE

What is ‘job dating’ in France?

No, this French term does not have anything to do with dating your co-worker - and might be handy for anyone trying to find a job in France.

Published: 12 April 2024 16:01 CEST
What is 'job dating' in France?
People meet recruiters for the French multinational automobile manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen, during a "job dating" in Montbeliard. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)

‘Un job dating‘ is the anglicism used by French companies and sectors looking to recruit workers – so if you’re looking for a job, it’s well worth googling whether there are any scheduled in your area.

It’s basically a recruitment event or recruitment fair, although its format is a little like speed dating, hence the name.

In French a job is un travail, un métier, un emploi or – more colloquially – un boulot. However the English word ‘job’ is also used as well, especially among younger people.

Dating is rencontre and the concept of speed dating (events in which you meet multiple potential dates for a short conversation) is well known, it’s usually called either rencontre minute or simply une soirée de speed dating.

Put together these two reasonably well-known anglicisms and we get ‘le job dating‘.

While they have dropped in popularity over the years, as more recruitment takes place online, ‘job dating‘ events are still common, especially in small towns.

People looking for work attend the event, and they engage in short interviews of about 10 minutes each with multiple different recruiters. If things go well, this could be the first step in the hiring process.

Usually a ‘job dating‘ lasts about half a day or one day. Frequently, these HR events are used to employ seasonal workers or temporary staff, which helps companies hire a large number of people at once.

They can take place either in person or online.

You may come across ‘job datings‘ in plenty of different industries, but they are particularly common in sectors such as healthcare and agriculture. Sometimes they can be geared toward a specific group of people (ie recent graduates).

France’s unemployment office France Travail (previously known as Pôle Emploi), often organises ‘job dating‘ events to help unemployed people find work opportunities.

In this case, they are often part of a larger ‘salon de l’emploi’ (job fair).

How does it work? 

Usually you need to sign up to attend in advance. You should bring along your CV and any other employment related documents, although the initial short interview likely will not involve any in-depth discussion of your qualifications.

Ask the expert: How to write the perfect French CV

Recruiters tend to focus more on the personality traits and other elements that might make someone a good or bad fit for their company.

After the short interview, you may ask the recruiter for a business card (or hand them yours) to maintain contact and move forward.

How can I find one near me?

You can search on Google, or go directly to work-focused websites such as LinkedIn and Indeed (the French version) and search ‘job dating’ followed by the city where you live. Depending on your sector, there will likely be a few events coming up.

Local news outlets often publish the sign-up information for ‘job dating’ events.

Dating at work

And speaking of dating – is it OK to date colleagues or co-workers in France?

Explained: The rules around dating in the workplace in France

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

BUSINESS

French barber still trimming at 90

French barber Roger Amilhastre could have hung up his clippers decades ago but he said his passion for the business gives him a reason to get up in the morning.

Published: 26 April 2024 15:01 CEST
French barber still trimming at 90

“I love this job, it’s in my bones,” the 90 year old said, leaning on one of his cast-iron barber’s chairs from the 1940s.

“And despite my age, my hands still don’t shake.”

Even with arthritis, he is on his feet from Tuesday to Saturday, tending to his customers’ hair and beards in his shop in the small southern town of Saint-Girons, in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

“I would have liked to retire at 60, but my wife was sick and I needed to pay for the care home,” he said, which cost more than €2,000 a month.

Even after his wife died in January, he kept going to work to stave off sad thoughts.

“I’m not grumpy getting up [to go to work],” he said.

France’s national hairdressers’ union believes Amilhastre may be the country’s oldest active barber.

“We have a few who continue late in life, but 90 years old is exceptional,” union president Christophe Dore told AFP.

“I’m not sure if he is France’s oldest barber, but if not, he can’t be far off.”

According to national statistics institute INSEE, a little more than half a million people over 65 still work in France.

In the southern region of Occitanie, where Amilhastre lives, only 1.65 percent of people older than 70 years old still work, including 190 79-year-olds. But statistics do not go beyond that age.

Many of Amilhastre’s customers call him Achille, after his father who founded the barber’s shop in 1932, giving it his name and then teaching his son the profession.

The shop witnessed the German occupation of France during World War II.

“During the war, German police came to find my father to groom a captain who had broken his leg,” Amilhastre said.

German troops had taken over a large stately home in town called Beauregard.

“We were scared because they used to say that anyone who went up to Beauregard never came back,” he said. “Luckily, he did.”

He said he remembered a “tough period” for businesses when he first picked up the scissors in 1947.

But then the town rebounded, he said, with its men following a flurry of new hair trends from greased quiffs in the 1950s, to 1970s bowl cuts.

The barber’s shop survived an economic downturn as local paper mills closed in the 1980s sparking mass layoffs, and supermarkets pushed small shops out of business.

“People started looking for work further afield, so we had to adapt and stay open later in the evening,” Amilhastre said.

That same decade, the Aids epidemic worried customers, who understood little about the illness at the time.

“People were scared,” Amilhastre said. “They no longer asked to be shaved and when we did, we were petrified there’d be a cut, that someone would bleed and the virus would be passed on to the next customer.” 

Jean-Louis Surre, 67, runs the nearby cafe where Amilhastre once taught him to play billiards as a young boy.

Behind his bar, Surre said he remembered his mother taking him across the road to see Amilhastre for a haircut every month as a child.

“He’d pump up the chair to reach the mirror, use his clippers and then at the end perfume you with some cologne – you know, squeezing those little pumps,” he said.

He is one of several older customers to regularly drop by Achille’s – even just to read the newspaper or have a chat.

Inside the barber’s, Jean Laffitte, a balding 84-year-old, said he no longer really needed a haircut. “With what little is left up there, these days I come out of friendship,” he said.

SHOW COMMENTS